As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Tiered storage is a data storage concept which includes high-cost and low-cost storage media. In general, high-speed storage devices are more expensive (per byte stored) than slower devices. For example, solid state disks are more expensive than hard disks, which are in turn more expensive than devices such as optical discs and magnetic tape drives. While some users may prefer to have all data available on high-speed devices, such a deployment is often not cost-effective. Tiered storage schemes place the bulk of the data on slower devices. In a typical tiered storage system, data files which are frequently used are stored on high-speed storage devices. Since only rarely-used files are on slower devices, most users will not notice any slowdown in practice.